Hello Andrew,
With XForms thru extensions you can also provide easy connection to database
connectivity and we are working on XML digital signatures using MSXML
version 5.
I must stress I am not working with or for the Tax authorities. We choose
the SA forms as a learning and interesting project for some students.
You raise issues rightly but it was not the point of exercise.
Kind Regards
Francisco Monteiro
Director
Facile Technology Ltd.
_____
From: AndrewWatt2001@aol.com [mailto:AndrewWatt2001@aol.com]
Sent: 10 October 2003 11:02
To: francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com
Cc: www-forms@w3.org; XForms@yahoogroups.com
In a message dated 10/10/2003 08:56:25 GMT Daylight Time,
francisco.monteiro01@ntlworld.com writes:
Hello Andrew
You mention this InfoPath (which does more than XForms per se does)
I do not believe the above.
Hi Francisco,
I think you are misinterpreting what I said. InfoPath does have more
functionality - database connectivity and digital signatures are two
examples.
But I also pointed out that there are deployment issues with InfoPath.
The scenario you mention below is one that Microsoft has excluded itself
(via InfoPath) from. Why? There is no practical way to get the (paid-for)
InfoPath client in the hands of what I would view as "casual" form fillers.
My company evaluated InfoPath and XForms (FormsPlayer) with a view of
providing the Inland Revenue Self Assessment tax return.
XForms won hands down.
Agreed. InfoPath was a non-starter for this scenario because of the
deployment issues.
> We have a very good demo showing XForms in it gory.
URL?
Everybody knows providing any forms which deals with tax issues is
complicated, granted that InfoPath has a good IDE but in our situation we
use ‘reflection’ on the schema and build 80% of the UI dynamic, it could be
100% but laws of ergonomics and ‘real estate’ will never make this
achievable.
How do you and the UK tax authorities propose to deal with, for example, the
issue of repudiation?
When John Smith is accused of fiddling his tax return which seems to show
that he claimed to earn Â£10,000 when in fact he earned Â£50,000. How are you
going to show that he signed for Â£10,000? And it isn't a mistake from some
other cause?
How are you going to deal with the issue of authentication? How do you, and
the UK tax authorities, know it was actually John Smith who sent the form
in?
If you are going to base substantive financial and legal transactions (in
the broad sense) on electronic forms it seems to me that you need to cover
issues like these.
Andrew Watt
The beauty about XForms is the simplicity of its model bindings, a quite
readable specification and FormsPlayer.
Kind Regards
Francisco Monteiro
Director
Facile Technology Ltd.